


Indoctrinations and Machinations

by sonicSymphony



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Bigotry & Prejudice, Character Death, F/F, F/M, Gen, Humanstuck, M/M, Potterstuck, Slurs, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-02-10 20:19:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2038749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonicSymphony/pseuds/sonicSymphony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the Ministry of Magic's new policies based on lineage begin warping into something resembling a caste system, Eridan Ampora must decide if he wants to go against his family and everything he was ever taught to stand by his friends. When he's not trying to beat back his own prejudices, he's left wondering why his romantic life is such a wreck, while also trying to get his insane Quidditch captain to tone it down a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Mudblood" Is Not a Politically Correct Term

**Author's Note:**

> **9/5/2017:** Hi there! Before you start this, you should probably know that this fic won't be finished. I wrote 4 out of the 10 chapters that I had planned (and if asked, I might post my outline if people really want to know where I was heading with this, but there's really not much there). Sorry for the disappointment, but I'm still very grateful to the people who read and kudos'd and commented on this fic over the years. Thank you so much for the support! If you still have a hankering for Homestuck, you can check my profile and find that I did finish all of my other fics for this fandom, so go nuts!

You wake to the pleasant feeling of _The Monsters Book of Monsters_ trying to gnaw your leg off.

“Fuckin—bloody— _Christ_!” You flail in the sheets, kicking at some third year’s book that _somehow_ got into your bed too early this morning. It’s Saturday and there are no classes, so whoever woke you up is going to _pay_. You know some awful hexes, and your impressive detention record shows that you’re not afraid to use them.

The fight with the book ends with you on the floor, tangled in a mass of blankets and stroking the spine of the evil tome. You knew there was a reason you didn’t take Care of Magical Creatures past the O.W.L. level. The stinging paper cuts on your leg remind you of this reason.

A shadow looms over you, and with a raspy _lumos_ , Karkat is looking down at you, and immediately you know _he_ stuck the book in your bed; the younger kids in Slytherin practically worship him, so he could’ve easily asked to borrow it from one of them. “Good morning, sweet prince,” he deadpans, nudging your stomach with his foot. “Ready to beat some unsuspecting Ravenclaws in Quidditch?”

Groaning, you put your hands over your eyes. Too late, you remember why this is a bad idea, but before the book can lunge at you again, Kar stamps his foot on it. Bending down, he encircles it in a belt and tosses it on your bed. The first time you try to speak, you yawn, so you decide to sit up and grab your glasses off your nightstand before you try again. “I think that damn book broke my leg, I can’t play.”

Flashes of guilt and panic flit across his face, but the second your smirk breaks free he morphs back into his irritated self, smacking you on the side of the head. “Get up, you melodramatic disaster. I’m hungry and I damn well know you need coffee, so come on.”

Just as you’re about to get up, a shape darts out from under your bed and lunges at your toes. Huffing, you grab Matilda by the scruff of her neck and toss her onto your mattress. Before she can move, you gather your sheets and drop them on top of her, clamping down on the edges so she can’t escape. “Don’t you know it’s rude to hit someone when they’re already down, you damn cat?” Mattie hisses a response that is the cat equivalent to _fuck you_ , and you let her out. She allows you to pet her head for a moment before scurrying back into her lair.

You get dressed in your Quidditch robes, saving your shower for after the game. You get a good look at your damaged leg, and it is reasonably cut up, but it’s all very shallow and you’re able to take care of most of it with a carefully-casted _episkey_. After you comb your hair and gel it into place, you head down to the Great Hall with Kar.

Immediately, you chug a cup of coffee and get another to sip on while you eat. Like a lot of people your age, you’re a bottomless pit, but you’re sure not to pile _too_ much food onto your plate; you don’t want to vomit on the field. Just _thinking_ about it brings back horrible memories from third year. You take another swallow of coffee to chase the thought away before finishing your bagel.

“Hey, babes!”

You immediately know whom the voice belongs to, so you’re unperturbed when an arm slides around your waist and someone plops down in the miniscule space between you and Kar, wiggling her butt to make room. She’s looped an arm around Kar as well, and he’s eyeing it warily. You snort at his expression and take another bite of eggs, secretly appreciating how warm she is. Winters at Hogwarts are fuckin’ freezing. “Hi, Rox.”

“Ravenclaw’s gonna kick your butt today,” she declares, rubbing your arm. You think she’s trying to get you fired up, but it’s too damn early to be worrying about your impending game. You have to wait for the coffee to kick in. “Dirk and Equius are gonna _beat_ the shit out of you!” She gives you a look, like she wants to say, _Get it, Eri? They’re gonna_ beat _you because they’re_ beaters _, and you and Karkat are beaters, and even though I’m not playing_ I’m _a beater, so there’s going to be a lot of_ beating _today!_

Snorting, you poke her in the side. She’s incredibly ticklish, so she squeals and leans away from you, meaning she’s practically on top of Karkat, and he doesn’t know what to do with a lapful of Lalonde.

That thought makes you scan the table for Roxy’s younger sister. The fifth year is reading a book three seats down and across the table from you, sipping on pumpkin juice. When she puts her glass down, she notices you staring and quirks an eyebrow. You mirror her expression, but she decides she doesn’t want to “humor you” (that’s the phrase _she_ uses, but you’re convinced she actually doesn’t hate you all that much) and goes back to reading. You direct your attention back to Kar and Rox, who have started fighting over Kar’s last piece of bacon.

“So you’ll be cheering for us since you’re not actually _playing_ , right? Despite our supposed impending doom,” you confirm.

She abandons her fight with Karkat to pinch your cheek. Since he thinks the battle is over, he relaxes, and as he puts the bacon in his mouth, Roxy swipes his muffin when he’s not looking. You swat at the hand that’s latched onto your face, and she sighs around her mouthful of food and lays her head on your shoulder. You can feel her chewing. It’s weird. “Darlin’, you _know_ Dirk and Janey are on Ravenclaw’s team.”

“But you _owe_ me,” you protest, ignoring how whiny you sound. “You always cheer for the other team, and yet,” you clutch at your chest dramatically, and when you look down at her she’s trying really hard not to smile, “you say you _love_ me! Oh, Lalonde, how could you deceive me like this? Do you know how fuckin’ _heartbroken_ I—”

Rox shoves the remains of her conquered muffin into your mouth just to shut you up. You try to swallow it but end up choking, and she thumps you on the back until you wash it down with coffee. “Wait just one fucking second,” Karkat says, eyes narrowing. “What happened to my blueberry muffin?”

“Eri and I ate it,” Roxy says shamelessly.

“You force-fed me,” you defend. “For fuck’s sake, Rox, you keep telling me I need to make more jokes and when I finally _do_ , you try to kill me! Ten points from Hufflepuff, holy fuck.”

Letting go of Kar, she scoots closer to you and stretches upward to plant a sloppy kiss on your cheek. (Lalondes are tiny, adorable little things. That, however, is definitely not a reason to underestimate them.) “Mwah! There’s a kiss for your poor battered ego. If it makes you feel better, I’ll cheer for _you_ personally when you’re not hitting bludgers at my friends. You too, Karkat.” She pats his knee before getting up. “Good luuuuuck!” She blows a kiss at her sister before sauntering back to the Hufflepuff table.

While you’re looking around, you see that none of the Ravenclaw Quidditch players are here. You’re startled to notice none of your teammates are eating breakfast, either. “Kar,” you say grabbing your coffee so you can chug it once you’re done speaking, “I think we should go. Some of our equipment is still in our room.”

He furiously finishes his eggs, and soon you’re getting up and heading towards the exit. Out of habit, you glance at the Gryffindor table, looking for Fef. She’s sandwiched between Jade and Nepeta, and the latter girl notices your gaze and nudges Fef, nodding at you. You feel the tips of your ears go red in embarrassment, and you’re about to look away when Fef grins at you, lifting her hands to the sides of her face and wiggling her fingers like fins. Most people would think she’s just being goofy, but you know better: she wants you to meet her by the lake.

You nod slightly before looking at the floor and catching up with Kar. “You’re a lovesick idiot, you know,” he says conversationally. “God, I thought you’d get over her after she told you she didn’t fancy you in fourth year, but here you are.”

Snorting, you shove his shoulder, and he elbows your hip in retaliation. You accidentally catch the eye of a sneering fifth year as he and another girl walk by; he’s in Slytherin with you and she’s in Hufflepuff, but you don’t know their names. The boy looks away when you glare, but you still hear him mutter, “ _Mudblooded trash_.”

If you were a cat like Matilda, your hackles would raise. Not because of the word “Mudblood” of course, seeing as you’ve used it yourself quite a bit. What pure-blood _hasn’t_? It’s an apt descriptor of certain members of the wizarding population.

What you _don’t_ like is that it was directed towards Kar.

Yeah, he’s a Mudblood. But he’s not a _Mudblood_ , if that makes any sense. He comes from a non-magical family, but he’s every bit a wizard, and he’s learned so much about tradition and lineage from you that you’re sure he could pass for a pure-blood. Well, until all pure-bloods are Marked, that is. Minister Peixes was very clear in her last speech that identifiers would be important in the future, but maybe if you helped him out enough, proved to the Ministry that Kar wasn’t like the rest of the Mudblooded cunts out there…

“Hey, Hogwarts to Ampora, get your head out of the clouds,” Kar says, snapping you out of your thoughts. Blinking, you look down at him. He must’ve not heard the other kid insult him, or else he would’ve started a duel in the middle of the hallway; Kar is not the kind of guy that just _takes_ bullying, he much prefers to wallop people into oblivion with spells (and sometimes fists). Since you don’t want to agitate him right before a game, you don’t tell him what the asshole said.

You get your padding and bat out of the trunk at the foot of your bed. Your broom is already down in the locker room, where you polished it last night and took it out for a test fly. The Firebolt Surpreme you got for this season flies better than anything you’ve ever used before, and you purchased it right after Bulgaria’s victory in the World Cup last year. A winning player should have a winner’s broom, after all.

Once you’re outside, Kar starts to head towards the pitch—it’s 10:30am, the stands will be starting to fill up and your captain wants you there in fifteen minutes—but you tell him, “I need to stop by the lake for a minute to, uh. Mediate.”

Kar looks at you like a dick has sprouted from your forehead, but decides to not question you. “I know you’re lying, but hey, whatever makes you hit harder. I’ll see you there.”

“Bye.” With that, you go to meet Fef.

She’s waiting for you down by the dock, dangling her feet in the water. As you approach, you take off your Slytherin scarf, and once you’re behind her you drape it over her shoulders, as per your tradition. Slytherins and Gryffindors are known to be the bitterest Quidditch rivals, but ever since you both got on your respective teams third year, you’d cheered for each other relentlessly, despite the looks you got from others in your Houses.

“Are you ready?” she asks as you sit next to her. Though the question is sincere, you know something else is on her mind.

“Pretty much,” you say. As she looks away from you to stare out at the water, feet kicking slowly, you know she isn’t simply wondering where the giant squid is right now. “What’s wrong?”

She sighs, laying her head on your shoulder. It feels different when she does this compared to when Roxy does—while with Rox it’s just friendly and your flirting isn’t sincere, with Fef it feels like pigmy puffs might erupt from your stomach. When it comes to her, you’ve never really stopped feeling like a fumbling eleven year old that barely knows what his feelings even _are_. You should’ve stopped loving her like this _ages_ ago, you’re very aware. You tried dating other people, especially once she and Sollux Captor got serious right around the time she shot you down, but you can’t seem to let her go. It’s getting rather pathetic.

You feel your face heat up as you thread your arm around her waist, but she doesn’t notice your blush, as she’s too busy not looking at you. She wraps an arm around you in return, tucking her hand into your pocket. For a second, you think she’s going to take away your beater’s bat to tease you, but as her fingers brush against it, she just leaves it alone. “Fef, I don’t have all day, I need to be at the pitch in—”

“Did you hear my mother’s latest speech?” she asks, and you feel her body tense. “About the Marking?”

Your wrist starts itching just thinking about it. The Minister for Magic’s words had really impacted you, and you’re sure many other pure-bloods feel the same way. “Yeah, I did. And Fef, I know you’re not going to like this, but I actually think it could be a _good idea_.”

“Of course it’s not, are you _mad_?” she demands, her free hand combing through her long hair anxiously. “They’re going to separate the pure-bloods from everyone else with some dumb tattoo, for what—for people to just _know_ that there are others ‘better’ than them out there? It’s _disgusting_ , Eridan.” She wretches away from you, putting half a meter between the two of you, and you instantly regret saying anything in support of this new measure. “Things have been becoming more and more prejudiced since Minister English, and it’s _deplorable_! It started decades ago, with little things like the Muggle-born Registration Act, but now with this movement, they’re going to force us into a caste system!”

Sighing, you reach out to her, and she ignores you. As you bite your lip, you put your hand down on the dock; you have to lean over a little so it’s within her reach. “You’re getting really worked up about this,” you observe.

She turns on you, eyes on fire, and you _know_ she was right to choose Gryffindor over Slytherin when the Sorting Hat gave her the option. That small betrayal still hurts now, though. “Yes, I am, and you should be too! Bloody hell, the Muggle-borns are afraid to speak up because of what happened to Denise Leijon when _she_ tried, so _someone_ has to do it.”

“They’re not Marking the Mudbl- Muggle-borns,” you quickly correct yourself as her eyes narrow, “they’re identifying _us_. Pure-bloods.”

“And they’ll move on to half-bloods, then Muggle-borns, and God knows what she’ll do after that!” Fef throws her hands in the air, frustrated. After swallowing, she takes a moment to calm down some, and then she asks quietly, “Eridan, do you love Karkat?”

Eyebrows shooting into your hairline, you demand, “ _What_?”

“Not like _that_ , you idiot,” she reprimands, flicking your hand that’s still resting beside her. After some hesitation, she takes it, and you slide closer so she can comfortably hold it in her lap and play with your rings. “He’s one of your closest friends. He’s _definitely_ your best friend in Slytherin. This is a _big move_ , Eridan. Bad things are going to start happening to Muggle-borns, I know it. Aren’t you worried about the effects this is going to have on Karkat?”

You take a deep breath, letting your head hang. “He doesn’t need to worry, Fef. He has me, and you _know_ I’ll get him through anything the Ministry tries to do.”

Your third year, she told you the only reason she thought you were “capable of saving” from your “outdated” viewpoint was Kar. You, Eridan Ampora, pure-blood extraordinaire, were best friends with a _Mudblood_. It was a scandal when it first happened, but people got over it (though your father _still_ hasn’t). Sometimes you wonder if what you’ve been taught actually _is_ wrong, but then you remember pisspots like Nitram and think yeah, Mudbloods are definitely suckish in general. “I’m never going to get Marked,” Fef swears, running her thumb along your knuckles. “I told you to come here because I wanted to ask you not to, either.”

There’s a roar from the Quidditch pitch, and the answering yells that follow tell you that pre-game has started; there’s twenty minutes until the game starts, and five until you need to be there. Cursing, you get up and offer a hand to Fef. She doesn’t take it, glaring at you. “Fine,” you relent, wiggling your fingers impatiently. “I won’t get Marked right away, we’ll see what happens with it. Alright?”

She doesn’t seem completely satisfied, but she still takes your hand and lets you pull her up. You walk at a fast pace together to the pitch, and out of the corner of your eye you watch her play with the fringe of your scarf. When you get there, just as you’re about to part ways, she pulls you into a hug. “Good luck out there,” she says, squeezing. “Don’t get hurt, and don’t hurt anyone else.”

“I don’t need luck, I’m the best player on the goddamn pitch,” you say, pulling back to smirk at her. She gives you an exasperated but fond look before bouncing off to the Gryffindor stands.

Luckily, when you get to the locker room, everything is disorganized and your team is still getting ready. As you do before every Quidditch game, you charm the blond streak in your hair emerald green and take a moment to make sure you look okay; though your hair gets reasonably messed up from flying, that’s no excuse not to look good going in.

“ _Ampora_!” your captain snaps, and you jolt. “Get your arse over here.”

Just so you can say you never obeyed Vriska Serket, you take your time heading over to where the rest of the team is assembled. You sit in-between Kar and Dave on the bench while Vris tries to glare the two youngest chasers into submission. After an awkward silence, she gets tired of their cowering and starts, “Now, I could give you a super awesome pep talk to rival every other one I’ve ever given, but today I’m not really in the mooooooood for monologues, so I’m gonna keep this short: beat Ravenclaw _into the ground._ I don’t care that we trounced Gryffindor. I mean, I _care_ , but this is more important. Ravenclaw has been doing really well this season, so I don’t care what kind of tricks you have to pull as long as you don’t get caught and we _beat them_.”

Despite the long-lasting feud between Slytherin and Gryffindor, beating Ravenclaw has always been more important to Vris than defeating anyone else, and you know why: Aradia Megido and Terezi Pyrope, their seeker and one of their chasers. They had a big falling out second year that ended with a lot of bloodshed, but the only one who was able to get retaliation was Terezi, because she’s a half-blood like Vris. Megido is a Mudblood, but your only opinion about her is that she’s almost as good as you in History. The stunts they all pulled landed each one in St. Mungo’s, but honestly you think they all overreacted to the whole Vriska-Tavros situation; what’s wrong with blood purity lessons between friends?

Soon, Vriska is leading you onto the pitch, and the game starts. Ten minutes in, you’re twenty points behind and it’s started to snow. It doesn’t matter how durable these damn cloaks are; you’re fuckin’ _freezing_ , and your shivering is throwing off your aim. When Vris practically _snarls_ at you for sending a bludger near her head, you just shrug; it’s not your fault you get cold easily. Taking out your seeker wouldn’t have been _that_ bad of a blunder. Hell, the entire school probably would’ve cheered for you, even your fellow Slytherins!

Half an hour later, Megido spots the Snitch first. Vris is immediately on her tail, flying low and against the stadium wall, and you motion for Kar to stay up here and mind the chasers and keeper. You’ll go after the seekers.

It seems the Ravenclaw beaters came up with a similar plan, as Equius swoops down beside you, mouth set into a grim line. “What,” you tease, having to yell against the wind, “you afraid I’ll take out your Mudblooded crush? Come on, Zahhak, I didn’t think you’d wanna taint your line like that. I’d be doing you a _favor_.”

The guy _growls_ at you before suddenly sweeping to the side and ramming against you. You hit the wall, but that happens a lot and you barely skim it, so it’s easy to rebalance while keeping pace with Eq. He’s still glaring at you, about to retort, when you notice the bludger coming from your left, soaring directly at the pair of you.

You duck down just in time, dropping a few feet so the bludger plows straight into Zahhak’s side and knocks him _through_ the side of the stadium and into the mostly hollow area with all the support structures. Since you know bludgers so well, you know it’s going to burst out of the wall and come for you next, so you pull sharply up and when it comes whistling at you, you’re ready. You swing _hard_ , and the bludger goes straight for Megido’s outstretched hand.

She retracts it so your hit flies past her, but it’ll come back so you speed up, trying to catch the seekers that are suddenly climbing higher into the sky…

But you don’t make it up there before the bludger comes back around, and as Aradia dives out of the way, Vriska decides to catch the Snitch and take the hit.

The bludger doesn’t collide with _her_ , it smacks right into her broom and knocks the end off, so she’s left grasping the handle as she starts to fall. She doesn’t get more than a few feet though, because you aren’t too far behind. You grab her around the waist, squeezing hard. “I haven’t touched you like this in _years_ ,” you snark as Kar swoops in to smack the bludger towards the referee.

“Drop me,” she says, fidgeting as she tries to get comfy in your grip, and she has _no idea_ how tempting that is. “Just let me splat, Ampora, you know you want to. It’ll be like that time when you—”

“That’s enough,” you interrupt, and since you’ve descended to about five feet above the ground, you let her go. You’re disappointed when she does an elegant flip and lands on her feet. What a wench. You land a bit farther down the pitch, and with the bludgers locked safely away, Kar comes to a stop next to you. As Slytherin cheers in the stands around you, you bask in the limelight and lift your broom in victory. It might be in your head, but you swear the yells get louder. You try to pick out Rox in the Hufflepuff stands, but there’s too much yellow and black to tell, so you squint and look for Fef instead. You think you find her, the specks of green and silver around her neck and her standing ovation making her visible. You wave to her. You hope she waves back.

You return your attention to the pitch. Your team has gathered around you, and Ravenclaw is only a few meters away. Zahhak is there, and there’s a certain tilt to his stance that makes you think he may have cracked a rib on that bludger, but he’s too prideful to say anything about it. Scoffing, Kar’s voice brings you back to your team.

“Zahhak may try to beat you to a pulp,” he warns. “You may be a good duelist, but that mountain has these things called _muscles_ —”

“I’ve got plenty of muscle,” you defend, flexing instinctively even though no one can see your biceps through the cloak. “I wouldn’t be a beater if I didn’t. It’s just… lean.”

Kar snorts, and you know he’s about to snap some outrageous insult when Vriska demands everyone’s attention. As you pretend to listen, a thought goes through your head: _he’s a Mudblood_. It doesn’t sit well in your stomach; when you met Kar on the first day of your first year, it had been a struggle not to think about his blood status after every word you said to him. Hell, you could just be in your dorm, skimming through a book, and you’d glance up and see him practicing _wingardium leviosa_ , and think, _he’s a Mudblood_. You know that it’s mostly pure-bloods that have that innate identifier in their minds, because you were taught magical lineage lessons right along with the alphabet, but you wonder how long it’ll take for these reforms to make sure _everyone_ thinks about blood status on the near-constant basis the Ministry demands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To continue my trend of writing incredibly self-indulgent fanfic, I decided to start planning out this idea that I've had for at least a year. A warning: don't expect regular updates for this one. I have every chapter planned out (ten plus an epilogue, though there may be an extra chapter or two depending on whether or not I add another subplot) but who knows when I'll write them. Maybe it'll end up like my zombie apocalypse fic and I'll pound out chapters to get it over with quickly, but I doubt it, because even though I did this chapter in a day, I'm trying to work on my main priority fic-- _Insurgency_ \--while also finishing up HSWC starting college. I have a lot on my fanfic plate, not to mention my real-life plate. There are a lot of plates involved. I hope I don't accidentally drop one.
> 
> I'll probably be adding tags along the way, because even though I have the skeleton of this planned out, I don't know all the little details. If you have questions or want to prompt something, head over to sonicsymphony.tumblr.com.


	2. Illegitimate Legilimency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, this story is not abandoned. It _will_ be finished, hopefully by the end of the year! Insurgency is still my main project, but since I have all of this plotted out, I hope I can keep up. This update took a while because I was so wrapped up in school and working on other stories, but I'm hoping to get a big chunk of it done over the summer!

When the mail comes a few days later, you and Karkat each get a letter. Your family owl Neptune drops it directly onto your lap, while Kar’s runt of a thing called Noctowl—he swears it’s a reference to something, but you’ve never fuckin’ heard of it—knocks over your mug of coffee and drops the envelope in Kar’s eggs. Luckily, there were only a few swigs still left in your mug, so you clean it up easily enough with a quick wave of your wand. Karkat is already reading his letter with rapture in his eyes by the time you break open the wax seal on yours and examine the envelope’s contents.

Eridan,

I’ve set up an appointment for you to get Marked tonight (February 20th) at the Ministry. Talk to the Headmistress and I’m sure she’ll be able to set up a floo pathway for you; she’s required by law to allow students to leave school for these sorts of matters. Ignore what drivel the youngest Peixes has undoubtedly sprouted, as she’s always had very uninformed opinions. I know you’ve grown very fond of that Mudblooded housemate of yours, but you need to understand that the purity of our race is more important than the feelings of a trollop. Anyway, if his feelings are hurt by you following the law, he isn’t a good friend.

There’s unrest coming, chief. I feel it in my bones. The Marquise speaks of it, as well. If you will not distance yourself from the Mudblood and Peixes, at least be on the lookout for unsavory behavior and report it to me. When all of this comes to a head, you don’t want to be on the wrong side.

Regards,

Durian Ampora

He only ever signed it as _Your Father_ for the first two years of your schooling. He’s grown colder since he’d worked his way up the auror ranks, becoming more and more corrupted with each showy title added to his name. His distance makes you miss your mum.

Kar groans, dropping his letter into his lap. “He’s such a _nag_!” he exclaims.

“Your father or your brother?” you ask.

“Well, both,” he clarifies, “but right now I’m talking about Da.”

Muggles. His brother is a couple years older than him and is in weird Muggle college, and Kar always finds new insulting adjectives to add to his name. You can tell he loves him, though, despite the acid coloring his tone when he speaks; his criticism is tinged with fondness. You don’t really know what it’s like to have that kind of relationship with a sibling—Cro’s not around all that much, and you can’t say you’ve missed him. It’s been about a year since you last talked to him. Kar’s dad might also be a nag, but you’re positive he adores Kar. Homemade cookies get sent through the mail every so often and he gets hand-knitted jumpers in the winter and even though his dad never picks him up on the platform, you can always tell how excited Kar is to get home and see him.

You haven’t really told Kar about your strained relationship with your father, but you think he’s implied a lot from your silence. Because of what you haven’t said, he’s invited you back to his house for the winter holidays every year, but you always decline—your father would kill half the Ministry before he ever let you stay at a Muggle’s house.

And you have to say that it’d be pretty fuckin’ weird, too. You’ve seen two Muggles in just as many years; it’d be strange having to interact with the same amount every day for a few weeks.

“What’d he do this time?” you question. “Warn you to stay away from giant spiders? Tell you to wear thick socks so your feet don’t get cold?”

He sighs harshly. “It’s nothing,” he mutters, shoving the letter into his robe pocket. “It’s just… Da being Da, I guess.”

You _hmm_ thoughtfully and go back to your meal. The food doesn’t taste as good as it did before, since you’re all wrapped up thinking about getting Marked later—and you _will_ get Marked, because your father demanded it and you can’t just say _no_ to him—and how upset Fef is going to be, since you promised her you wouldn’t. Maybe you’ll try to hide it from her for a while.

Later, you’re leaving Defense Against the Dark Arts with Kar and Kan, having said goodbye to Fef already, when the two of them split off, chatting amicably and not giving you a second glance. You stop in the middle of the hallway, staring down the branch they just went down that’s _away_ from the Slytherin dorms, and loudly clear your throat, causing them both to stop and turn towards you.

“Oh,” Kar says, startled. “Did I not tell you? We’re going to work on the DADA homework with Gamzee. You coming?”

You almost say no out of spite, since you were obviously a second thought, but you don’t want to lay in bed feeling sorry for yourself for the next couple of hours, so you just shrug and catch up to them.

Gamzee Makara has always underwhelmed you. Kar is constantly telling you how much he hates him—which means, coming from Kar, that he adores him—and you don’t think he’s ever going to be able to move into wizarding society proper, but being a pure-blood has its perks.

And Gam will definitely need to make use of them.

He’s waiting for you in the library, laying on the table in a way he probably thinks is “reserving it” and staring up at the high ceiling. There’s a reason you think Hufflepuffs, as a majority, are weird as fuck, and that reason is Gam. (Rox is the only Hufflepuff you genuinely like, and she’s told you that the Sorting Hat said she had the aptitude for _all_ of the houses, so she got to pick. You were also given a bit of a choice, but when the Sorting Hat said, “ _I believe you would also thrive in Hufflepuff_ ,” you’d mentally screamed, “ _JUST PUT ME IN SLYTHERIN ALREADY_!” Rox could be a Hufflepuff all she wanted; that was _not_ the right house for you.)

Gam slides off the table and onto the floor, then pulls himself into a chair. The three of you descend more gracefully, though Kar does plop into a seat rather loudly. This unit has been on dementors, and the four of you each look up stuff in different textbooks, writing down information that could be of use when you have to write an essay about all this. Studying has never really been able to hold your attention for very long. Soon, you’re ready to just chat, and Kar starts the gossip train for you. “I heard we’re doing illegal curses next.”

Kan scoffs quietly, turning a page in her book. “We won’t be performing them, I’m sure. We’ll probably get some demonstrations, though. I wonder which ones they’ll be going over.”

You already had one demonstration, a long time ago; you’re almost looking forward to seeing them in action once again, as long as they're not directed at you. “I know,” you say boldly, then look at Gam, who hasn’t spoken. Talking directly to him, you say, “You do too, don’t you Gam?”

“Indeed I do,” he says with a languid shrug. “You’re talking ‘bout the Unforgivables, right my pure-blooded brother?”

You nod once sharply. Releasing a long sigh as Kar and Kan look at you expectantly, you say, “I’m going to save most of the learning for class, but I’ll tell you now that there are reasons these things are called Unforgivable Curses. One’s a killing curse, one’s a torture curse, and one’s a mind-control curse. They all fuckin’ suck but this lesson has the potential to be _really_ interesting, and you’ll learn more about each of them soon.”

“So given their nature, we probably won’t be given demonstrations?” Kan asks, sounding a bit disappointed.

“The professor could’ve gotten a permit,” you guess, “but I can’t say for sure. The Ministry has really slackened the laws surrounding them lately, though, so it’s probably not that hard to get permission to cast them for learning reasons.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Kar says.

“They’re shady business,” you admit. “But it’s better to know about them and be able to prepare for them than to be caught off-guard and killed because of it.”

Well this gossip session just got dour. You go back to your book after that, though you’re still not really interested in dementors.

When you return to your dorm about a few hours later, after dredging up everything on dementors you could find and then eating dinner in the Great Hall, it’s only you and Kar in the sixth year bunks. You start doing more homework, prepping for your advanced potions class tomorrow, when Kar decides to bring the conversation back to life.

“About the Unforgivable Curses,” he says suddenly, breaking the silence.

“I told you, you’ll hear more about them in class,” you interrupt.

He huffs. “I just have one question!”

Rolling your eyes, you relent, “Fine, ask away.”

“That mind-control curse,” he says, looking towards the door as if he’s afraid someone is going to walk in on you, “is it what Vriska used during second year?”

“She was never convicted,” you say slowly, testing the weight of the words to see if they’re the right ones, because this is Hogwarts’ touchiest subject, “and she mainly used Legilimency, but yeah, I think she used the Imperius curse too.”

“Is that what it’s called?” Kar asks.

You nod. “There’s also the Cruciatus curse,” a jolt goes through your stomach as you say it, “which is the torture one, and the plain old Killing Curse. They all suck, and I know people who’ve used each one.” When Kar looks at you incredulously, you just shrug and say, “Most pure-bloods do. Hell, even aurors use them, but Legilimency is a lot more common.”

“And that’s the mind rape thing?” he clarifies.

“Well,” you say, “I think that’s some pretty extreme wording—”

“It’s an extreme thing!” he exclaims. “And I didn’t know it was ‘ _common’_. Am I just being a stupid Muggle-born, or do most people not know?”

You admit, “It’s kind of kept quiet. I know because my father’s an auror. He taught me Occlumency before I could even comprehend how devastating Legilimency could _be_.”

“You’re an Occlumens?” he questions, even though you _just said that you were,_ although you were supposed to be _good_ at Occlumency to consider yourself an Occlumens and you're _alright_ , but not phenomenal.

You blink hard. “Um. Yeah, I guess, most pure-bloods are these days. We’re not really supposed to be trained in it, and my dad told me to let people from the Ministry in if they ever wanted anything.” You swallow, not really comfortable thinking about some skeevy stranger rooting around in your head. “But it’ll be a good skill to have for what’s coming.”

“And what exactly is ‘ _coming’_?” he says almost accusingly.

Holding up your hands defensively, you say, “Kar, I don’t know, really. My father just said to be on the lookout for anything suspicious.”

He closes his textbook and sets it aside, sighing and clenching his fists. Looking you directly in the eye—which is unnerving, given the topic of conversation—he demands, “Teach me Occlumency. What do I have to do?”

“ _Well_ ,” you say, somewhat flustered, “it’s not that simple. I’d need to know Legilimency and I suck at it. All I can really tell you is you need to empty your mind. The rest of it involves suppressing different thoughts and memories so the Legilimens thinks what you want them to think. I’m kind of fuzzy on the details.”

“Teach me anyway,” he demands, sitting up straighter.

An idea pops into your head—a bad idea, but an idea all the same. “I don’t think that’s a good plan,” you say, and before Kar can cut you off, you continue, “ _but_ , I know someone who _can_ teach you.”

“Who?”

“Our lovely Quidditch captain.”

He laughs harshly, wiping a fake tear from his eye. “Mate, I think I need to get my ears checked. I just heard you say that you want to get _Vriska fucking Serket_ to teach me Occlumency.”

“That’s because I did,” you say.

“You _really think_ having her punch her way into my head is a good idea?” he says incredulously, and before he can start ranting to high heaven, you huff.

“Look, I know it _sounds_ terrible, but hear me out. A few years ago, she was the best Legilimens of our generation. And then all of that stuff with Tav, Ara, Ter, and Sol went down,” you hastily add before he can turn any redder with contained anger, “which was awful, and that’s why she’s the fucking worst person in Slytherin. However,” you raise your eyebrows, “we’re on the Quidditch team, and our reserve beaters this year are crap. You really think she’d put her precious team at risk when Ravenclaw is having a decent season?”

He contemplates for a few minutes, and you start to think he forgot about your proposition and went back to his homework, but then he growls, fisting one of his hands in his hair. “Go ask if she’ll do it before I change my mind.”

Sighing, you get up. “I guess I’ll go over to the girls’ side and see if she’s around.”

You don’t have to go that far—she’s in the common room by herself, a few feet of a half-written essay on the coffee table and a book in her hand. The book probably doesn’t have to do with what she’s writing; it seems to be about acromantulas, and she’s not allowed to write about them for Care of Magical Creatures class anymore because she wrote every paper about them during third and fourth year, even if they had nothing to do with the actual assignment. “Hey, Vris,” you say, coming up behind her. You don’t sit down on the couch, and she grunts in acknowledgement. You stand there for a minute, giving her time to realize you’re not going away.

When she finally notices, she sighs grandiloquently, dropping the book onto the cushion next to her. “What is it, Ampora?”

“Are you still a good Legilimens?” you question.

“Duh! But I’m not supoooooooosed to be using Legilimency anymore, remember?” she drawls, putting her feet on the coffee table in front of the couch. “Ever since Tavros threw a bitchfit, I’ve hardly even looked people in the eye because they get so freaked out.”

“Well you _did_ make him jump off the astronomy tower,” you add reasonably.

She throws up her hands. “He lived! And the healers fixed his spine, so he’s fine now, why are people so fucking fixated on—”

“Woah,” you interrupt, holding up your hands. “I’m not attacking you or anything. I’m the one who _wants_ you to use Legilimency. And it’s for a good cause!”

“‘Good cause’ my ass,” she says, snorting. “What, you want me to find out if someone has a crush on you?”

“Kar wants to learn Occlumency.”

She laughs, high and mocking. “You want me to help a _Mudblood_ learn Occlumency? Am I really talking to Eridan Ampora here, or have you really become that runt’s _bitch_ ever since I dumped you?”

 _Dumped_ is too kind a word—she’s humiliated you in front of your entire herbology class during fourth year, breaking up with you because you were still hung up on Fef after dating for about two weeks.

Huffing, you straighten your shoulders and snap, “You know he ain’t like the rest of those swill; he’s in _Slytherin_ , for Merlin’s sake! Just give him a fucking _chance_ , and if he’s not up to your standards, I’m not gonna ask you to keep trying.”

She thinks for a minute, tossing her hair over her shoulder and looking up at the ceiling, expression sarcastically pondering. You can tell she made up her mind before she even started fake ruminating, and you impatiently tap your foot until she relents. “All _right_ , I guess I’ll do some charity work. _Plus_ ,” she smirks, “you have to polish my broom before every Quidditch game for the rest of the school year.”

“Get _Kar_ to do it!” you whine. “He’s the one you’re tutoring!”

Scoffing, she says, “But _you’re_ the one I’m doing the favor for!”

Ugh, this bitch. “Fine.”

She gets up, and you start a bit in surprise. Vris sees that, and she quirks an eyebrow. “What? My schedule is free now, so let’s get this show on the fucking road.”

“I haven’t even given him a lesson yet,” you protest. “It’s too early for you to try and break into his head.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you came out here and asked,” she counters, stretching with her back arched and arms reaching towards the ceiling. In this position, it’s easy to see her one feature that makes her similar to Fef: small boobs. “Let’s go.”

Clenching your jaw, you spin on your heel and march back over to the boys’ dormitory with Vriska hot on your heels. Karkat gives her a weird look when she enters, then remembers why she’s here and refuses to make eye contact with her. “ _Already_?” he questions.

“I’m seeing if you’re worth my time,” she says flippantly. Strutting over to his bed, you watch warily as she grabs his jaw roughly and tilts his head up. He looks up, but not at her—his eyes go to you, and he seems guarded, but you see the alarm in his expression. You give a small nod as Vriska barks, “Look at me, Mudblood,” and his gaze snaps to her.

He starts like someone pinched him on the ass, and you gulp, leaning on your own bed but ready to bolt over there if it starts to look like she’s fucking with him too hard. They stare at each other for about a minute, sweat beginning to form on Kar’s brow, and when it appears she isn’t going to let him go once he starts breathing hard, you start to wonder if this was a good idea after all.

Then she breaks eye contact and lets him go. He recoils like a snapped harp string, jerking back as his hands curl into fists in his bedsheets. Snarling in frustration, he says, “Why would you go _digging_ for that kind of stuff?”

Vriska barks a hard laugh. “You got pissed off so fast!” she taunts. “You need to stay _emotionless_ , not get angry.” You’d told him that at the start, but it seems like he’d forgotten in the midst of actually having someone prying into his mind. You try to read Vriska, and as Karkat shouts back at her with some kind of scathing retort, you realize something.

She looks impressed.

“Look,” she says, cutting off his rant. “Just because I pity you for that terrible attempt at Occlumency, I’ll give you a couple of lessons. Talk to me after Quidditch practice in a couple of days and we can set up a time.”

He seems surprised by this, blinking hard and looking frazzled from his tirade. “I don’t even know if I still _want_ to learn, after that bullshit.”

“That should make you want to learn even moooooooore! Don’t make me take it back,” she taunts. “And Ampora, don’t forget about our arrangement.”

You make a gagging noise, and she just rolls her eyes and struts out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

“What kind of ‘ _arrangement’_ did you make with her?” Kar asks.

Shrugging, you say, “Oh, I have to polish her broom before the next couple of Quidditch games because she’s doing _me_ the favor of teaching _you_.”

He grunts in acknowledgement. “That sucks.”

“It’s nothing,” you say in such a way that you convey the opposite connotation.

He pauses, looking at the ground then back at you. His, “Thanks, mate,” is sincere.

His brown eyes, warm like hot chocolate, thaw you a bit. You just shrug and get back to studying.

After about half an hour, your vision starts to get blurry and your mind turns partially to mush, so you decide that’s enough reading for the night. Checking the time, you see it’s only 6:30pm, and that means you should head over to the Ministry to get your Mark. You hope Kar will just let you leave without inquiring about your destination, but as you slip on some nicer robes, he asks, “Mate, where are you going? We already had dinner.”

“Roxy asked me to do potions homework with her,” you lie, pleading internally that he doesn’t question your robe choice. Luckily, he just grunts and shrugs, then returns to his studying.

The walk to the Headmistress’ office feels longer than usual. You pass a couple of random students and prefects along the way—you’d been very bitter for a while that you weren’t one of them, but then you got a week’s worth of detention for causing a centaur stampede in the middle of Care of Magical Creatures class and realized you probably weren’t the right person for the job; it’d be nice to have patrols with Fef though, seeing as she’s a Gryffindor prefect and is probably going to be Head Girl next year. She’s not one of the ones patrolling tonight, but you do pass Rose and Terezi. You give them a polite nod and nothing else.

You spend a few minutes waiting outside by the stone gargoyle until Headmistress Lalonde deems you worthy of passage and lets you ascend the hidden staircase. As she is most nights, she’s sipping a cup of iced firewhiskey as she goes through piles of paper, scribbling all over them in such a way that you think it’s just to make her _look_ busy; it all seems to be nonsense to you. “I need to go get Marked,” you say.

She grunts, still writing furiously, and you wait. Her sleeves are shoved up to above her elbows, and you see the she doesn’t have the small Mark on either of her wrists. Her children may be half-bloods, but the Lalonde family had been incredibly pure-blooded until she fucked some Muggle and had four kids with him without even getting _married_. Dirk is the oldest, a seventh year and incredibly quiet—you don’t think you can remember having a conversation with the kid that lasted more than five words, though you have given him some pretty acidic looks during Quidditch matches. Roxy is your favorite, even though she broke up with you after two months of dating, and she’s certainly one of your best friends. You’d dated Dave too, for a little while last year, and he was the only one of your past beaus that _you’d_ broken up with. (It didn’t matter that he’d blinked confusedly and said, “You mean we _didn’t_ break up when we stopped talking to each other a month ago? That’s news to me, someone call the fucking Prophet.”) Rose is a bit unnerving, but the fifth year is alright, despite her teasing that she won’t let you go through all of the Strider-Lalondes like a wardrobe, she has _standards_.

The Headmistress herself, though, is somewhat of an enigma. Roxy says that she’s constantly working, even during summer break, and she doesn’t spend much time with the lot of them, though she’s constantly sending them little notes (and the occasional howler, for “funsies”). You’ve talked to her enough times, because your father is always trying to get you out of school to attend one pure-blood rally or another, and even though she’s a pure-blood herself, she always seems to roll her eyes and allow you passage with a small bit of disdain. Now that you’ve seen she hasn’t been Marked when she should’ve been one of the first to do so, you learn a little more about her.

After a few minutes, she finally puts down her quill. “There’s some floo powder on the mantle,” she says. “ _Only_ go to the Ministry, because you aren’t authorized to go anywhere else.”

You nod and head over to the fireplace, and once you recite your destination and throw down a handful of powder, you’re on your way.

The Ministry of Magic is busy, despite it being late in the evening. You wonder if your father is still around, but you squash the idea before it even forms; he hadn’t mentioned wanting to see you in his letter, so you won’t seek him out. You have a vague idea of where to go, but the lady in the reception area sends you in the right direction, and you ride the elevator all around until you finally arrive.

After the minor hassle of getting here, the process is relatively quick. A stranger draws a perfect circle on the inside of your wrist with her wand, right on top of a collection of veins and tendons, and it stings but you can’t flinch. She then moves the wand tip to the center of the circle, and ink flows to the outline, filling in the circle with black. You can already see how they’re going to do the half-blood and Mudblood Markers when Fef’s mother has the gall to announce them: a half-filled circle and an empty one, adorning the wrists of the majority of the European wizarding world.

Guilt wells in you as she takes the wand away, notes in your record that you received the Mark, and says you can go, but you stamp it down. You’re only following the law. Pointedly ignoring the fact that Fef is going to be incredibly disappointed in you, you floo back to Hogwarts, already trying to figure out ways you can hide the Mark from prying eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters down, eight to go! If you have any questions, prompts, or just want to nudge me into updating, head over to sonicsymphony.tumblr.com and I'll get to them!


	3. “We’re Only Friends Because You’re Pretty and Privileged”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not moving along as fast as I had hoped! However, I do hope to get into some kind of routine with this, since if I force myself to sit down and write, I can finish these chapters in a day or two. As I said last chapter, I have no intention of dropping this fic, and I'm sorry that these chapters are so short with such long pauses between them.
> 
> As you can see, I'm 30% done--I've officially said there are 10 chapters in this thing instead of ? and that means I've decided not to do an epilogue. Can I change my mind? Maybe. But if I wrap this up the way I want to, we won't need one.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the chapter!

It makes you antsy to sit in the stands while other people are playing Quidditch. Every time you hear the _whizz_ of a bludger as it flies by, your left bicep twitches in anticipation, ready to smack it even though you’re not in the air or armed with a bat. Kar doesn’t seem to have this problem, however—currently, he’s gripping the underside of the bench with anticipation, slightly leaning forward as Gryffindor and Hufflepuff duke it out. The former team’s first game against you hadn’t gone well for them, but this one seems to be going better; they’re still losing by fifty points right now, but no one has spotted the snitch, so it’s anyone’s game. Fef is in perfect form (when is she not?) and Rox seems like she’s bored, doing loops and spins on her broom while Jake and John smack a bludger back and forth, seeing who can hit it harder.

Is this really what inter-house Quidditch has come to?

“In a jarring turn of events, it seems Gryffindor has managed to get their hands on the quaffle,” Professor Scratch commentates, sounding bored. He used to be more animated during Quidditch games, but then Headmistress Lalonde told him he had to stop making crude remarks about the underage girls playing. He got very sulky after that. “It is passed to Miss Leijon, who manages to somehow get it past Hufflepuff’s keeper and score, bringing the deficit closer. A question: do _any other chasers_ on Gryffindor know how to score points? Miss Leijon has scored all of her team’s five goals this game, and if my memory serves me, she scored three out of the four during their previous game as well. Can Miss Harley find the snitch and save the game for them, or is Gryffindor destined to have a weak season? If you are the first to bring me a two-foot-long essay on the matter, you will receive five points of extra credit on your next _real_ essay in my class.”

If you still took Divination, you’d totally go for it, but you’d decided not to take it past the OWL level. You feel bad for Fef right now, because she’s fuckin’ killing it and the rest of her deadweight team refuses to play up to par. Maybe if English would stop horsing around…

It seems John is now ending their miniature bludger war. He flies closer to their seeker (a tiny little third year girl, you think her name is Casey) and waves his arms at her. Once he gets her attention, he points, and she immediately darts away.

“It seems Miss Salamancer has spotted the snitch. Oh, happy day,” Scratch deadpans.

“Jade’s going to get it,” Kar says with conviction, staring hard at Gryffindor’s seeker. “Salamancer’s new, and Harley is fucking unstoppable—”

But then Roxy smacks a bludger straight at her, and she has to change her course. Jade starts yelling, and by Jake’s reaction, her obscenities are directed at him. Fef is much closer to her than he is, since she’s actually a _good_ beater, and she smacks the bludger towards Jake, who sends it hurtling to the other side of the field. Luckily, he doesn’t continue the trend of hitting it towards John.

Fef stays close to Jade as she gains on Casey. John decides that Jake is now Roxy’s problem and dives to follow them. It’s kind of hard to see the action from here, so everyone starts to stand up. Since you’re tall, you can see over peoples’ heads fine, but Kar makes a high, frustrated noise, bouncing on the balls of his feet as his eyes only come up to the shoulder blades of the person in front of him. Smirking, you jam your hands under his armpits and lift, positioning him so he’s standing on the seat. Someone behind him complains, but neither of you care. For once, he’s half a head taller than you, and instead of saying thanks, he uses your shoulder as a grip as he leans forward, mouth parted and eyes focused.

You’re so caught up in watching him that you miss Jade diving for the snitch. From what you can tell, she’d leapt off her broom and caught it between both hands, then tucked and rolled onto the turf. She’d only been about two or three feet above the ground but she’d been moving fast; she tumbles along the grass for multiple meters and then she jumps up, holding the snitch and hollering. She seems to not have broken any bones, unlike you when you (accidentally) did a dive like that. You’re irrationally envious.

Most of Slytherin groans at the Gryffindor win, but you whistle since it’s Fef’s team. Even if it’s kind of nice when Gryffindor sucks, it upsets Fef, so you’d like to be happy for her, especially since Hufflepuff was projected to beat them into the ground. You and Kar wait for most of the rush to take place, letting the stands almost empty before you make your way back to the Slytherin dorms. You’re the only ones in there—Dave is out doing whatever the fuck he does and your fourth roommate is almost never around—so Kar thinks this is a great time to start a weird conversation in the middle of homework.

“When you lifted me up at the game, I saw this _really_ strange mole on your wrist,” Kar says, and by his tone you can tell he’s being sarcastic, but he’s _always_ sarcastic. You pale anyway. “You should probably get that checked out, mate, you might have cancer.”

Sighing, you shut the book you were reading and set it aside. “Okay, yeah, you caught me,” you say harshly. “I followed the law and got Marked. What’s the big deal? It doesn’t really _mean_ anything.”

“When did you get it?” he demands, ignoring your question. The sudden venom in his tone makes you feel defensive, but you crush it down for now.

Instead, you wilt. “A couple of days after our last Quidditch game.”

His nostrils flair indignantly. “And you managed to hide it from me for _two weeks_?”

“Look,” you say sternly, starting to feel vexed right along with him, “I wasn’t just keeping it from _you_ ; I haven’t wanted _anyone_ to know. Do you have any idea how Fef would react if she ever got wind of it? I told her I wouldn’t—and when I said that I _meant_ it, but then my father had already made me the appointment, and—”

“I have a revolutionary new idea for you,” he interrupts, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t listen to you father when he’s being a blood-purist arse! And another thing: you only cared about _Feferi_ knowing? What about me? Seeing as I’m the rotten _Mudblood_ here!” He spits out the slur as virulently as your father would, and it makes you flinch.

“You… I never thought you minded,” you defend yourself, resisting the urge to wrap your arms around your torso to keep yourself together. “Y’know, that I have…” You clear your throat awkwardly, feeling like a jerk. “Proclivities toward folk with the strongest lineage.”

Shrugging, he snaps, “I just got used to it, from you. You never said shit to me to be mean, like a lot of the other Slytherins did. You talked to me like I was this lost little thing that you had to educate, and you filled up my head with all of these ridiculous, convoluted ideas based on lineage and magical aptitude and all of this other bullshit. Yes, that is what they are— _complete and utter bullshit_! I humored you because parts of it were interesting and I was just some dumb little kid from the Muggle world that wanted to know _everything_ about magic, so I put up with your blood purist attitude and didn’t say a word because I thought you’d just throw me into the pit of snakes that’s the rest of Slytherin.”

“So,” you say, and your eyes are not watering, what the fuck are you talking about, “you’ve pretended to be my friend all these years, just because I wasn’t _intentionally_ mean to you?”

He growls, fisting his hands in his hair. “When the fuck did I say that? Of course not! Ugh, you look like you’re going to cry, fucking _stop it!”_

“I’m not gonna cry,” you mutter, swallowing. Mustering up some venom, you hiss, “If you don’t fuckin’ hate me, then what _are_ you saying?”

“What I’m _saying_ ,” he says patronizingly, “is that you need a fucking attitude adjustment. God, stop looking so upset, this whole conversation is your own goddamn fault.” His hands grip your shoulders and you keep looking at the wall behind him so you don’t have to see the scowl on his face. He sighs, then says in a softer tone, “Mate. Eridan, look at me, come on.”

Reluctantly, you move your gaze towards him and lock eyes. He shakes you a little. “Shit’s heating up in the wizarding world, Eridan. You know, Fef knows, _I_ know. Here’s the part where I make you pick a side: are you going to stand next to your dad and help them expel me and people like me from our little slice of funtime magicland, or are you going to take a _stand_ , like Feferi is?”

 _You, Kar, of course I’m going to choose you_ should be your answer, but making your mouth form those words isn’t easy. “It’s not going to come to that,” you say instead.

“Then you are the most naïve idiot I’ve had the displeasure of knowing,” he says, but his tone isn’t unkind. You’d almost say it’s fond—frustratingly, begrudgingly fond. “The wizarding world is _divided as shit_ right now. You can tell because Slytherins are not the only ones who bother me for being a Mudblood—it’s people from every house! Hell, even _professors_ show heavy bias sometimes! I have gotten shit from the day I stepped onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and it’s only gotten worse as the years went on. Just because you haven’t seen a lot of it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.”

Your mouth feels dry, so you lick your lips to wet them. “I though the assholes laid off once I… took you under my wing, or whatever,” you say quietly.

“Nah,” he says flippantly, “they just waited until you weren’t around.”

“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” you ask, feeling betrayed even though he was the one suffering through all of this.

“Because you’re _you_ ,” he says as an answer, and you blink confusedly. He finally removes his hands from your shoulders, and you sort of feel like he just lifted up your anchor and is letting you drift off to sea alone. “You’re an irrational, irresponsible, barely tolerable _brat,_ and I can take care of myself. Or at least, I could.” He huffs. “You haven’t heard a lot of the stuff that’s going on Eridan, because you’re up there on your pure-blood pissing palace, not giving any heed to us mortals. As of yesterday, half-bloods have to get Marked, too,” he announces, and you can hear Fef’s _I told you so!_ ringing in your head. “It’s only a matter of time before Muggle-borns are forced into it as well, and then the Ministry is going to start _using_ it for stuff.”

Before you can say anything, he heads over to the trunk at the foot of his bed and starts taking bundles of newspaper out and throwing them onto his bed. You watch as he sorts through them and puts a few off to the side, then drops the rest back into the trunk. Taking the remaining ones in his hands, he thrusts them at you. “Here, do some light reading; I’ve already circled the stuff pertaining to this fucking crisis. I know you’ve finished your homework, so this is your date for the night. I’m sure you’ll be a very happy couple, and I will not speak to you until you have read all of these and you’re capable of talking to me about this predicament without shit coming out the wrong end, okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” you agree as you take the papers, because you don’t really know what else to say.

He looks like he has a lot to add, but for once he holds his tongue, patting you on the arm before flopping back onto his bed and taking out his iPod. Muggle electronics didn’t work at Hogwarts for decades, but then Mituna Captor happened—he found a way to modify devices so the block would be bypassed, and now that the mantle was passed on to Sollux, the younger brother had set up a working Wi-Fi network. (You cringe a little bit from all of the tech lingo, because this is Muggle stuff and you shouldn’t know anything about electronics, but you’d been sort of fascinated by technology ever since Kar gave you his old iPod for your thirteenth birthday. Angry Birds continues to be infuriating.)

Maybe the Wizarding world would adapt to technology and embrace it, but for now, you think it’s having enough intrinsic issues without being exposed to all of the “progress” in the Muggle world. To get a better understanding of those issues, you select a random article from the heap Kar gave you, sit down on your bed, and start reading.

You don’t think any of the news stories are from the Prophet—they’re not conservative enough. When you’re halfway through the stack, Dave comes back, hands stuffed in his pockets and sunglasses firmly in place. Only douchebags wear sunglasses indoors; you’d never managed to convince yourself otherwise, even during your brief period of dating him. “Spiderbitch is looking for you,” he tells Karkat as he flops down onto the bed.

Kar grumbles something incoherent and slides of the mattress. Without looking towards you, he points directly at your chest and says, “Keep reading,” before striding out of the room.

It’s silent for a few minutes, and next time you look up, you manage to convince yourself that Strider is staring at you. His face isn’t turned your way, but he could be looking anywhere he wants and you wouldn’t know. Trying to ignore the weird feeling, you read the same sentence three times in a row without processing it before you sigh, snapping, “What is it, Dave?”

“Who, me?” he asks, feigning innocence.

“Why’re you staring?”

“Well,” he says, adapting a rather informative tone, “I was just thinking how I never really processed how big your nose is. _Damn_.”

You scoff in disgust, pretending that your ears aren’t turning bright red. “It’s not big, it’s just _pronounced_. Learn the difference.” Pushing down the urge to go look in a mirror and reassure yourself it isn’t your most dominating feature, you keep reading.

Once you’ve gone through years and years of articles on legislation and faux justice, you meet up with Fef later to congratulate her for her Quidditch victory. She’d made a little origami squid and charmed it, sending it along to your dorm with realistic swimming motions, and you almost didn’t want to unfold it after it’d laid down on your sheets, but you had to so you could read the note inside. It’d told you to come down to the lake, and you’d obliged.

Fef is dangling her feet in the water when you arrive. It must be freezing, since the air is cold and you’re chilly even in your thick robes and scarf, so you sit down close to her, throwing your arm around her shoulders and pulling her in close. “You’re gonna get frostbite,” you reprimand her.

She sticks out her tongue at you. “And you’re no fun!” Kicking at the water scatters the minnows that had gathered near her toes and splashes you; you yelp, flinching as drops splatter your robes.

“If you only called me here to get freezing cold water on me,” you say, mock-affronted, “I’ll go _without_ telling you how well you played today.”

“Oh, whatever will I do without your compliments?” she says, sounding completely earnest and fluttering her eyelashes at you. It makes you want to shove her into the lake in jest, but you don’t want to _really_ give her frostbite. Fef takes her feet out the water, shaking them off the best she can before putting her socks and boots back on. “There, happy?”

“Am I ever happy?” you deadpan.

“Sourpuss,” she teases.

You let one corner of your mouth tug up. “I guess. Now, what’d you want to talk to me about?”

“I overheard that you and Karkat got in a fight,” she says.

Raising your eyebrows, you question, “Where’d you hear that?”

“Jade mentioned that Dave tried to go back into the dorm and you and Karkat were going at it, so he—these are his words—‘noped on out of there’. You and he don’t normally fight. Well, you bicker, but never with actual vitriol. I thought you might want to talk.”

Bumping her shoulder with yours, you bite down that it’s none of her business and say, “He gave me a required reading list of like… your kind of activist shit. I’m decently informed now.”

“Oh?” she intones, interested. “What sources did he use?”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “They were all clippings. I could tell they weren’t from the Prophet, but I couldn’t give you a name.”

She _hmm_ s, and you think it’s kind of weird that she asked a condescending question like that. You mean, Kar’s the Mudblood here—shouldn’t he know what he’s talking about? Fef’s a pure-blood; she only knows what’s going on because she keeps up with the news, not because she’s actually experienced anti-Muggle-born sentiment.

However, Fef is at least _trying_ to be part of the movement. You’re a complete outsider. What the hell are you doing, questioning her intentions like this? She knows this shit better than you.

“You’re saying you fought with him because he wanted you to do some light reading?” she inquires.

You shake your head. “It was actually the _result_ of the fight, and there wasn’t even really much of a _fight_ to begin with. He got annoyed, I got offended, I read stuff, end of story.”

“Well, what did you think?”

Shrugging, you say. “I kinda get it now, but I’m not entirely convinced or anything. You should always try to understand both perspectives, from a knowledge standpoint, and I always though I got that by just being friends with Kar, but I only got some of it. Reading personal accounts and statistics and shit made me more… skeptical, if anything. I’ll question stuff the Ministry does, but not like. Out loud. More for introspective purposes.”

“So you’re only interested now to benefit _yourself_?” she asks wryly.

Defensive, you say, “Well, I wouldn’t put it like _that_ —”

“That’s _so_ like you,” she sighs.

You know where she’s going to take the conversation next, so to ease suspicion, you bring it up first. “I’m still not going to get Marked. My father hasn’t said anything to me about it yet, so I don’t see the point.”

Fef looks up at you, surprised, like she’d thought you would’ve broken that promise already. Since the sleeves of your robes hang to your knuckles, she can’t see that you actually _are_ Marked, but you guess your testimony was convincing enough for her not to pick up your wrist and look for herself. “Oh,” she says. “Good.” Then she starts, like she remembered something, and digs around in the inner pocket of her robes. “I almost forgot! I brought us these.”

She dumps about twelve flat stones onto the dock. They’re smooth with rounded edges, perfect for skipping. Right now the lake is flat as can be, steaming slightly from the difference in air and water temperature; you almost don’t want to disturb the peace, but it’s been a while since you skipped stones with Fef. You used to do it all the time as kids, and when you used to meet up at the lake you’d both collect them and see who could skip them the farthest. She almost always won.

“You take half,” she says and you do, moving them over to your left side so you can throw with your dominant hand. Fef tosses the first stone, and it skims across the water, creating light ripples and bouncing one, two, three, four, five times before it sinks.

Since Fef has already broken the surface tension, it won’t be as satisfying to skip your stones anymore, but you do anyway. It takes a load off your shoulders—Fef has seemed generally irritated with you lately, and you were hoping she wasn’t calling you here to start a fight with you or something. You miss the times you had together as children, before your non-platonic love had messed everything up for a while and blood politics were a foreign concept. Everything was so much simpler.

As you throw rocks and try to beat each other, you can pretend it _is_ back then, for a little while. If you can muster enough confidence now to be who you were back then, maybe you could think everything would be alright after all.

 

* * *

 

At breakfast the next morning, Kanaya walks by the Slytherin table for the purpose of flirting with Rose. Or at least, that’s what you think at first—as she turns to leave, she slides her copy of the Daily Prophet into Karkat’s lap. The headline almost makes you spit out the coffee you’re drinking.

DENISE LEIJON SEEN IN DIAGON ALLEY

You glance at the Gryffindor table; you don’t see Nepeta at her usual place near Fef and Jade, nor is she crashing the Ravenclaw table to sit with Equius or Terezi. When Kar sees the large, bold text, he stills. “I didn’t even know she was out of Azkaban.”

Even you think Azkaban was harsh for simply being a very loud activist, but apparently an example had to be made, and the chosen culprit was Nepeta’s aunt—a newspaper columnist that went full-on rebel. There isn’t a lot on record about what happened about twenty-five years ago, but you know that was the last great period of unrest, when Minister English was first settling into power. He was harsh—harsher than Minister Peixes has been so far, though she hasn’t been pushed like he had been. You wonder what she’d do if the same sort of thing happened during her regime.

By the way the explanation was framed by the old generation explaining it to the new, it seemed like Denise’s opinions were in the extreme minority. She’d had almost no supporters, and she’s been quickly dealt with and put away to rot.

But if she was so inconsequential, why did her day trip to Diagon Alley make the front page?

Kar reads the article first, and then he passes the paper along to you. There isn’t much in the way of good information in here. It’s honestly just rambling about a half-blooded ex-prisoner that was kind of important and seemed to be readjusting to civilian life rather well. Underwhelmed, you set the paper aside and continue eating. Maybe she was important to people like Kar at one point, but it doesn’t seem like it anymore—now she was just one more apathetic soul in a sea of radicals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any interest in the Quidditch game Eridan references when grumbling about Jade's perfect tunk-n-roll, I wrote a ficlet about it [here](http://sonicsymphony.tumblr.com/post/121470917149/eridan-ampora-quidditch-star).


	4. Time to Buy Expensive Scarves Before Daddy Writes You Out of the Will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, I've said that I'll get to this fic whenever I damn well feel like it, and I guess that holds true. Since I just wrapped up a big part in my other ongoing fic, I felt like it was time to belt out another one of these chapters, so here it is! I hope that the distance between this chapter and the next isn't as much as it was before (seven months is a long time, sorry); I'd really like to finish this up over the summer, but I might end up having even less time than I do now so we'll see!

Saturdays are the most magical day of the week, since Vriska doesn’t make you practice Quidditch when there’s not a game and you can sleep in as late as you want. You guess it’s not magical in the traditional sense, but it certainly is magnificent for you, because you really, really enjoy sleep.

Kar likes it even more than you do; when you awake at around ten, he’s still snoring. You take your time getting out of bed, showering, and putting on some clothes that are much more stylish than your regular robes, letting yourself languidly drift around your dorm getting ready. Your other two roommates are already out—Dave and his fifth-year friends are particularly notorious for getting up early on Saturdays to do scrimmage games when the Quidditch pitch isn’t being used—and you don’t want to risk the wrath of Kar, so you head out to get breakfast by yourself.

Fef is in the Slytherin common room when you leave, reading her Care of Magical Creatures textbook with a quill tapping her nose. She’s sitting by one of the portholes to the lake and when you approach, you see the giant squid swim by. You swear she radiates some kind of ocean magic that draws sea creatures to her; you’ve never seen the squid when she wasn’t in the room. “Hey,” you say once you’ve sat down on the couch beside her.

“Good morning,” she says, eyes drawn to the squid instead of you. It is now swimming deeper into the lake, past a large column of kelp.

“Who let you in?”

“Rose,” she says. The younger girl is nowhere to be seen, but you knew that she and Fef were on halfway decent terms; even though Fef is pretty goddamn Gryffindor, a lot of Slytherins at least respect her because of her lineage, and they’d grown used to her hanging out in the common room so she could get a good view into the lake. “Have you eaten breakfast? I’m hungry.”

You hardly hear your question because you’re still squinting out of the porthole, trying to keep an eye on the squid. “Starting your Saturday with some squid-watching, then?”

“Duh,” she says, rolling her eyes good-naturedly and putting her study materials in her bag. “You say that like I’m _not_ here every Saturday morning when there isn’t Quidditch. You didn’t answer my question, you berk! Food?”

“I am rather hungry,” you say, getting up and offering her a hand. She tears her gaze away from the porthole and moves it to your fingers. As she reaches for you, she stops abruptly, eyes widening.

It only takes you a moment to see why. Your pure-blood Mark is exposed, its slightly-faded coloring showing that it’s weeks old.

Slowly, you lower your outstretched arm, gulping. “Fef, I can explain—”

“I can’t _believe_ you,” she says, voice low. She clears her throat and drops your wrist, looking down at the ground so she’s no longer staring at your pleading expression. “I… I shouldn’t be surprised though, right? I’ve always known who you are.”

“Fef,” you try to stop her, heart in your throat, but she keeps going.

“Of _course_ you lied to me!” she exclaims, laughing a little. Your stomach drops when you see tears in her eyes, but she doesn’t let them spill. She stands abruptly. “A lot of our friendship was built on that! You’d make me mad, then you wouldn’t want to deal with the repercussions so you’d lie and say what I wanted to hear.”

“That’s not true,” you counter, “I—”

“It _is_ true!” One of her hands burrows into her sea of curls, clenching into a fist. “And—and somehow, when you took me aside last month and told me you hadn’t gotten Marked as you hid your freaking wrist, I believed you. Merlin, how was I such an _idiot_?”

“ _I’m_ the idiot,” you say, because you want to make this better, and you hope she’ll stop and laugh and say, _oh of course you are, my ridiculous-dramatic-witty_ idiot _of a best mate_ , but she just clenches her jaw and swallows.

“Yeah,” she says slowly, nodding once. “Yeah, you are, but so am I. Because I’ve loved you and trusted you and I thought I could make you better when you were so resistant to change. You’ve done this to me so many times by now, and I still thought you could… could… ugh, I don’t even know anymore. But you know what? I don’t care.” The shakiness of her voice and the wetness of her eyes beg to differ, but her tone is full of conviction as she continues, “I need to be finished with you. I’ve tried to hold this friendship together for _years_ , even after all of the stupid, petty things you’ve done. I’ve let you lie to me before, but not anymore.”

“Feferi.” Your voice is in pieces, but just like she’s in control, you won’t let yourself cry.

“Eridan.”

“Just… just _look_ at me, love.”

“I’m not your love,” she says softly, and you can tell she’s still mad but she’s always pitied your feelings for her and you can still pluck on that, apparently. “You need to accept that I never will be. That’s part of why things have been so different between us—”

Anger flares in you faster than you thought possible. “No!” you exclaim, and that startles her into glancing at your face, which has gone bright red. “Fuck you! I’ve been trying to move on. Hell, I’ve dated more people than you have! Sure, maybe I’m still a little bit in love with you. I have been for so long that it’s hard to tell the difference between _that_ and just loving you, like a friend should. And I’m sorry! I’m fucking _sorry_ , all right? Is that what you wanted to hear? I’m so sorry that me trying to smother and kill my crush on you has caused _you_ so much peril. I know I never had a chance, and it fucking _hurts_. How _dare_ you say that I made things different, that I haven’t accepted what I’ve always fucking known, and I can’t believe you just tried to make this fight about that. Because me being in love with you has nothing to do with blood purity.”

For almost a minute, the two of you just stand there, your chest heaving with your rant and Fef frozen, staring at your feet. Some younger kids come in from their bedrooms, see the two of you in some kind of standoff, and flee faster than you thought possible. Once they’re gone, Fef says measuredly, “I don’t think we should be friends anymore.”

You can’t help it; you snort. “You sound like a child.”

“Well, then I didn’t think you’d _get it_ otherwise,” she condescends. “We hardly get along. We have almost nothing in common—”

“Come on, Fef, we like plenty of the same stuff,” you try to convince her, because you’re becoming aware that this isn’t a nightmare. This is actually happening. “Quidditch, charms, aquatic things…”

“But we have different beliefs and ideals and I just don’t think we’re _good_ together.”

“We were never together,” you say, bitter, “like you oh-so-kindly wanted to point out earlier.”

She takes a deep breath before saying, “I just think it’d be better for both of us. You can have fun with your mainstream supremacist friends and I’ll stop draining myself on you. It’s win-win.”

“Really?” you ask, incredulous. “It’s win-fucking-win?”

Pursing her lips, she pushes past you and out of the common room. You don’t follow.

Instead, you go back upstairs; you’re not at all hungry anymore. Kar is still in bed, continuing to snore up a storm, so you cast a silencing spell on him and curl up under the covers in your own bed, even tucking your head under the comforter. You refuse to cry, but you feel absolutely wretched, so you tuck into a ball and lie there in darkness. It’s the weekend; you don’t have anything to do besides stew in your own misery.

You don’t know how long it takes for you to hear movement in the room. Eventually, someone shakes your shoulder, and you hear Kar’s voice say, “Mate, are you alive under there?”

“No.”

There’s a pause where you’re sure Karkat is trying to determine what shade of melodramatic you’re wearing today, and he doesn’t take his hand off you as he thinks. “Are you sick?”

“No. Leave me alone.”

You expect him to snap some expletives at you and go on a rant about how you’re taking his heartfelt concern for granted, but he just asks, “Do you want me to bring you food?”

Your stomach growls. “No.”

He leaves after that, and you feel even worse. Your face gets a little wet somehow and you doze for a bit. When you come to, the covers have been ripped off you and Kar is laying a banana and apple on the sheet next to you. Surprisingly, he’s not scowling, but his expression isn’t happy as he holds out a muffin. “What flavor?” you ask. Your voice is disgustingly croaky.

“Blueberry, what the fuck else?” he says. “Your delicate sensibilities can only take the sweetest of muffins but oh no, not chocolate chip, that’s much too fattening and you need to watch what you eat to keep your immaculate Quidditch body. Does Prince Arsehole want anything else?”

You sit up, pulling your legs under you and nibbling on the edge of the muffin. “Thanks,” you say quietly.

“You want to talk?”

Shaking your head slightly, you take another small bite of muffin, looking down. Kar leaves your side and you feel an irrational jolt that wants to make you tell him not to go, but he just grabs a book from his trunk and comes back to sit next to you on the bed. He stretches out, almost punching the apple he brought you, and starts to read.

You’re halfway through the banana when you can finally say, “Fef found out that I got Marked.”

“She didn’t take it well?” Kar asks, not taking his eyes off the page. You can tell he’s still listening, though.

“She friend-dumped me. She doesn’t want me to speak to her anymore.”

He snorts. “Well, joke’s on her. They announced this morning at breakfast that there would be Ministry officials coming tomorrow to Mark _everyone,_ so she’ll be Marked by the end of the weekend.”

It’s silent for a few moments as you digest this. Karkat doesn’t seem perturbed, which is explained by the fact you know he saw this coming. Fef did too, but you don’t think she expected it to be so soon after the initial announcement. You finish your banana in one bite, taking your time to chew and swallow before saying, “Kar, I’m sorry.”

Putting his book aside, he says, “You didn’t pass the mandate.”

You pull your knees up to your chest, wrapping your arms around them and perching your chin on your knees. “But people like me did,” you murmur. “Kar, I… I don’t know what to think.”

“Attitudes don’t change in a day, no matter how much I’d like you to pull your head out of your arse and see the world like an actual human being instead of a pure-blood,” Kar says. “If you have questions, talk to me about them. Some of them will probably be offensive and gross, sure—that’s practically a fucking given with you at this point, you walking disaster—but I will be as patient as the fucking Ravenclaw door knocker, okay? I want you on my side.”

Gulping, you can’t bring yourself to look Kar in the eye for your next admission, so you just stare at your comforter. “I need to keep the fact that I’m trying quiet. My father can’t find out.”

Kar thinks about this for a minute. You see him tossing the statement over and over in his mind, trying to figure out the meaning behind it, but the only thing Kar knows about Durian Ampora is that he’s a big guy and an auror, and aurors don’t have the best reputation in Mudbloo— _Muggle-born_ circles. Your father disdains your friendship with Kar; if he ever learned that you were even _considering_ going against the regime that gave the Ampora family so much power…

At the very least, you’d be written out of the will. The worst that could happen terrifies you more than that, which is surprising because you really, really like having money. How else would you keep up with your lavish lifestyle? Scarves and rings don’t buy themselves.

“Eridan,” he says, picking up on the fear seeping out of your pores, “it just means something to me that you’re trying, okay? That’s a good step. You don’t need to tattoo ‘muggle-born fetishist’ on your forehead and run around chanting equal discourse at all hours of the day. Just be open to some _needed_ criticism and don’t get too huffy when I correct your bitch arse.”

Just when you’re beginning to feel a little bit better about all this, what happened about an hour ago hits you all over again. “Fef hates me,” you lament.

“You shouldn’t have tried to hide this from her; she knows more about your… uh, relationship with your dad than I do, so if you explained that he made you do it, I think she would’ve understood. The girl can be pretty damn reasonable whenever you treat her right, Eridan.”

“Fef _doesn’t_ get it,” you say, an odd lump forming where your stomach should be. “Her mum’s a right bitch and a dominating minister, but Fef rarely sees her. They like to pretend that the other doesn’t exist, and they’ll gladly stay out of each other’s way for as long as possible, since Meenah is a good heiress and Fef isn’t really all that important in her mother’s schemes. But my father wants me with him. He wants me to follow in his footsteps and come with him to ‘important’ anti-Mudblood events and show me off like a good little heir, even though Cronus is technically his number one. Fef never really had to play the perfect kid game with her mum, but I’ve always had to and it’s fucking _hard_. You say the wrong thing, and you get yelled at. Step a toe out of line, and you get hit. Minister Peixes is a lot of things, but she isn’t a constant source of pressure like my dad is, though I do...” you sigh harshly, running a hand through your hair. “I do feel bad, because she doesn’t love Fef. And she needs affection just as badly as I do, even if she doesn’t show it as obviously. But she’ll never understand, about me and my father. I kind of don’t blame her for it, though, because I hardly get it either, sometimes.” Swallowing hard, you put your hand back down on the covers and laugh a little breathlessly. “Um, sorry. Got a little carried away there.”

Kar just looks at you owlishly for a second, and then he’s leaning over and wrapping his arms around you. It’s pathetic how quickly you return the embrace, your fingers clutching his sweater. The silence is heavy, and for a second you think he’s going to ask about a particular part of your rambling, but he chickens out. “Your dad doesn’t need to know,” Kar assures you. “I can handle you hiding in the closet for a little while longer. I just want you to let me keep you informed about everything happening on my side of things.”

You’d been taught that Mudbloods were weak thieves that stole magic bit by bit from people who actually deserved it. Durian Ampora taught you that P was for purity and C was for Cruciatus and B was for blood traitor, and your mother taught you how to waltz at high society parties that only pure-bloods could attend and told you that the people and creatures working behind the scenes were “the help”, and they could be treated like they were inferior. You’d believed them for a long, long time, because you found out who the Muggle-borns were and fished out their incompetencies, bit by bit, and added them to your list of Reasons Why Blood Purity is Justified.

But Kar was never on that list. He was an exception, because Muggle-born Slytherins don’t happen all that often and he was so willing to listen to you, even if you know now that he was just humoring you. If Kar could break out of the mold, then who’s to say that maybe you shouldn’t have had the mold at all to begin with?

_I can’t lose you too,_ you want to say, but instead you just pat him on the back and let him go. You want to thank him for being so understanding, but instead you just pick up the apple he brought you and take a bite.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, you all have to be in the Great Hall by eleven. They have eight of the Ministry Markers there, positioned at the ends of the benches at either side of the long House tables, waiting for stragglers to finish their breakfast before beginning. You could’ve sat near the head of the table, since you just have to show you Mark and then you’re dismissed, but Kar needs moral support and you didn’t want to just leave him to stew by himself.

Rose Lalonde is one of the few still working on her breakfast, sipping her orange juice across from you as she reads a thick tome. Just like her mother and sister, she’s kept her wrist bare, despite being one of the people with the easiest access to the Ministry because of who her mother is. She notices you watching her, looking up with her eyebrows raised. Before you can say anything, she glances to your own wrist; her lips thin into a displeased line as she rolls her eyes and goes back to her book, not wanting to hear any defense you might have. You’re not used to the shame that curdles in your gut, but you tell yourself that in a minute, everyone will know she’s a half-blood just as much as they know you’re a pure-blood.

Just as the Ministry officials get into their positions and Headmistress Lalonde stands, the large set of doors at the back clatter open, revealing Professor Scratch, who is levitating three students in body-binds. “They refused to come,” he says shortly, flicking his wrist to free them. Fef, Jade, and Nep land in a heap on the floor, Fef scowling and Jade glaring and Nepeta baring her teeth. “Get in line, girls,” he says, tone stern and a wicked glint in his eye.

Scratch has a bad reputation. It wasn’t just his Quidditch commentary—it used to be much creepier and skeevier—but his Divination classes, which were always cryptic and full of doom and gloom. He was a prophet himself, full of bleak tellings, and even though that rubbed you the wrong way, that still isn’t what made you completely on edge with him.

A few weeks ago, he’d assisted Professor Slick with the Unforgivable Curses lesson in DADA. The talk you’d had with Kar and his friends about possible demonstrations was all speculation, but demonstrations there were. Scratch had brought in a house elf, “One of my very own,” he’d bragged, and Slick had scoffed and rolled his eyes, telling Scratch not to go overboard before heading into his office to take a nap.

Mind control, torture, and death. Scratch performed them all without batting an eyelash, expression neutral and wand movements strict and purposeful. One Gryffindor had thrown up. A group of Slytherins near the back started crying. Fef had shot up and screamed for him to stop during the Cruciatus Curse and his wand had turned on her.

(For a brief moment you’d touched your own wand, _Avada Kedavra_ on your lips because you’d borne the torture curse yourself and you’d never, _ever_ let it touch anyone you cared about—)

But Scratch just flicked Fef back into her chair, silencing her and binding her. “Ten points from Gryffindor,” he’d said. “Miss Peixes, upstart brats like you are why I can perform these spells so efficiently.”

The whole class got the threat. Fef’s friends looked like they wanted to eviscerate Scratch. For the rest of the lesson, you kept your fist wrapped around your wand.

When it was over, you’d left in a hurry and let yourself have a panic attack in peace, but you couldn’t help but think that Fef just made a scary enemy.

You don’t like that Scratch was the one that found the girls trying to escape from the Hall just now. He could’ve done anything to them in the interregnum, but your heart melts in relief was Fef gets up quickly and struts to the Gryffindor table with her fellow escapees, head held high. She doesn’t even glance at you at the Slytherin table, where you’re staring at her in plain concern, but then you remember she hates you now and you wilt.

“Shall we begin the procedures?” Scratch asks the Headmistress from across the hall, and for a second, you think you see an inkling of revulsion on Lalonde’s face, but it’s gone in a millisecond.

Standing, Headmistress Lalonde claps her hands once, and all of the students shoot to their feet, yourself included. You’re already in line because of the way this was set up, Kar right in front of you and Dave behind you. Kar seems calm, nonchalant in his posture, but you can see the sweat beading at his temples and the slight tremor of his hands. He reaches back for you, grabbing your hand in a vice grip for just a moment before dropping it.

“Everything’s gonna be fine,” you murmur in his ear. “It doesn’t even hurt.”

“Not everything that hurts is _physical_ , you moron,” he hisses back, stepping up in line.

When you get near the front, you see the levitating binders that the goons are using to trace family trees and lineage so they can make sure the wizard or witch isn’t lying about their blood status. You keep trying to catch Fef’s eye across the hall, where she’s standing at the end of one of the Gryffindor lines, but it feels like she’s purposely keeping her line of sight far away from you. You end up meeting Roxy’s gaze instead, and she looks at you, expression grim as she rubs at her wrist. You shrug slightly, pointing at your chest and then tapping your inner wrist; you hope she catches the meaning. You think she does, but she just looks sadder, shaking her head slightly at you and turning back to her line.

It sort of hurts that everyone is so disappointed in you for getting it early. Vriska got hers the first day it was available to half-bloods. Gamzee showed up to a study session with his a few days after you’d gotten yours, and he didn’t even hide it like you did. Equius wore his like a coveted award, because even if his line was full of blood traitors, he was a pureblood and he liked to show it. If they could do it with little to no repercussions, why are your friends so mad at _you_?

You sulk your way to the front of the line. Kar goes right before you, jerkily holding out his wrist and grimacing deeply as the Ministry official confirms his Muggle-born status with his notes.

“Vantas,” the older man says slowly, squinting at the runt of a kid in front of him.

“Yeah, like I bloody well said,” Kar snaps. “Got a problem?”

“Interesting,” is all he says, like he for some reason recognizes a Muggle surname before placing his wand against Kar’s wrist and drawing an even circle, leaving the inside blank.

As soon as you step up, you flash your Mark and he taps it with his wand, confirming its legitimacy, and then you’re practically jogging to catch up with Kar.

He’s rubbing the Mark with his thumb, like it’s ink that can be washed off. “This fucking blows,” he mutters to you.

Sympathetic (for once), you put an arm around his shoulders and lead him down the hall. You feel your own older Mark like a drop of molten gold on your wrist, and you wonder when it stopped being a badge of honor and started making you feel like cattle.


End file.
